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Charlie and Chloe C Peñaranda (The Stars Are Dying) discuss the incident wherein her heroine stabs the hero, getting around her hero’s ability to run amok via deus ex machina, and becoming a hybrid author after success as a self-published writer.

Please note there are brief mentions of abuse in this episode.

General references:
Chloe’s TikTok

Books mentioned by name or extensively:
Chloe C Peñaranda: An Heir Comes To Rise
Chloe C Peñaranda: A Throne From The Ashes
Chloe C Peñaranda: A Sword From The Embers
Chloe C Peñaranda: The Stars An Dying
Chloe C Peñaranda: The Night Is Defying
Sarah J Maas: A Court Of Thorns And Roses

Buy the books: UK || USA

Release details: Recorded 24th October 2024; published 13th January 2025

Where to find Chloe online: Website || Facebook || Instagram || TikTok

Where to find Charlie online: Twitter || Instagram || TikTok

Discussions

01:36 Was romantasy the genre you’d been waiting for?
02:55 The initial thought for The Stars Are Dying – Greek myths and Chloe’s series An Heir Comes To Rise, and we talk about potential spin-off series
06:34 Why Chloe chose the second iteration of Nyte and Astraea’s relationship to focus on instead of the first
08:04 On having a general direction or goal in mind for The Stars Are Dying
08:49 Creating Astraea and Nyte
10:26 Using a slow burn romance
11:45 Getting around the potential deus ex machina of Nyte’s powers
13:07 Deciding when to give readers answers as to Astraea’s mental state and so on
14:33 The inclusion of amnesia and abuse
15:44 The Libertatum
17:55 The planning before putting pen to paper
19:21 Discussing Astrea’s stabbing of Nyte
20:53 Slight notes on the crossover between The Stars Are Dying and An Heir Comes To Rise
23:54 On Cassia’s role
25:06 Drystan
25:38 About The Night Is Defying
27:06 How fans of An Heir Comes To Rise have responded to The Stars Are Dying
28:38 Being, now, a hybrid author
30:13 How the traditional publishing deal came about
32:19 On getting a house and garden for her dogs following the publishing deal
33:37 Ideas Chloe is considering for her next work

Transcript

Please note that this transcript has been edited for legibility and is not a 100% accurate representation of the audio. Filler words and many false sentence starts have been removed, and words have been added in square brackets for clarity.

[Recorded later] There are still some tickets available for my live event in February, check the show notes for the ticket link.

Charlie: Hello and welcome to episode 113 of Author’s Afterword, formally known as The Worm Hole Podcast. On this podcast I talk to an author about one – occasionally more – of their books in detail. So, I’m Charlie Place and today I’m joined by Chloe C Peñaranda to discuss her first traditionally published book, The Stars Are Dying. Astraea only remembers the last five years of her life and those five years have been spent under the isolating protection of Hektor who spends some nights in her bed but also many nights in others beds. Top notch fellow this guy, absolutely top notch. On an evening when she’s on one of her stealth escapes – she likes watching the gatherings she can’t join – Astraea meets a mysterious man called Nyte. He later helps her escape the building for good. She will end up in the Libertatem trials held by the Crown which, if won, make the victor’s homeland safe from the vampires for one hundred years. And she will need to relearn what she’s forgotten about who she is, why she has tattoos of the waxing moon on her body, and why Nyte is both a voice in her head and able to be by her side in an instant. It’s a pretty literal star-crossed lovers this one. Hello Chloe!

Chloe: Hello.

Charlie: It is lovely to have you.

Chloe: It’s lovely to be on here, thank you.

Charlie: You’ve said in the past, I believe, about how you read fantasy and wrote it when you were younger, but then you’d got into books like ACOTAR – I should probably say ‘A Court Of Thorns and Roses’ for anyone who happens to not know what that is – this sort of newer, romance fantasy. Did the development of this romantasy genre help you focus your own skills – was it the genre you had been waiting for, as such?

Chloe: In some ways yes. In some ways no. So I obviously started publishing with An Heir Comes To Rise, my longer series, which is definitely more fantasy-forward than romantic. So I always loved epic scale fantasies, multiple books, multiple plot lines, interweaving and things. So romantasy developed and it became something… not new but definitely newer to focus on just one couple, which is very much what The Stars Are Dying is about – the Nytefall trilogy is focusing on the romantasy aspect and the couple and they’re star-crossed lovers. But before, the first things that I ever published were more epic fantasy – the found family is my favourite trope. So it’s been a shift, but I love both genres, basically.

Charlie: Fair enough. Well, we will get onto The Stars Are Dying. Can you tell us what the initial idea or the first kernel thought that you had was for this series?

Chloe: I wouldn’t have the Nytefall trilogy, it wouldn’t be what it is, without An Heir Comes To Rise; when I started looking into the constellations and things, because I knew I wanted this starlight atmosphere and I started researching into the constellations and I came across the Greek myth of Astraea, who was the constellation Virgo, and the idea of the collapse of this golden age of mankind. And I had an idea with a character who’s not quite on page in my other series, but I had the idea of what happens if the golden age of Astraea’s world didn’t collapse because of mankind, but from a star-crossed love story between a villainous character who was never supposed to be in her realm and having these two characters that are as powerful as each other, clashing forces and collapsing the solar magic, basically.

Charlie: Okay, well I got the Greek mythology and obviously there’s the constellation there, but there’s obviously a lot more that goes into it than I’ve even noticed. Can you talk more about this, expand on your thoughts and your planning and stuff like that?

Chloe: I mean planning, I don’t have a whole lot of planning going on [chuckles]. A lot of it is just discovery. So it started with the idea of the atmosphere, like the stars in the night. I read into constellations and Astraea and from there it was just the discovery. So I knew that I wanted more species in this world. Whereas An Heir Comes To Rise, it’s just humans and fae – in The Stars Are Dying, in the Nytefall trilogy, I wanted to have more species so then I started thinking of what if we had fae and then vampires who are the terrorisers of the society known as so far. And then when I had the vampires, I started thinking, well, you have one type of vampire everybody knows, which is the blood drinking kind and I wanted to expand on that as well. So I ended up with vampires that drink blood, that consume souls, that can walk in the daylight, that can’t walk in the daylight, some have wings, some don’t. So there’s a lot of lore there. While the Nytefall trilogy is going to be focused on Nyte and Astraea’s story, the world just is so large that there’s potential for just more exploration. The fae in this world as well have different quirks. So yeah, as I wrote, more things developed in this world that has made it quite big.

Charlie: Okay, so am I reading something into this, maybe there’s going to be a spin-off series or something at some point?

Chloe: I think there’s definitely open doors – there’s mentions of the guardians which raised Astraea at one point and we touch upon more of those in books two and three. So I have ideas floating around; because Astraea was raised by these six guardians who were one of every species in the world, every vampire. So I think it’d be really interesting to potentially do spin-offs with those dynamics. In the age before Astraea, the species were all at war and had these differences towards each other, how they all came together and then these six were chosen to raise Astraea. So there’s just a lot of lore that we probably won’t get a lot of in the core Nytefall trilogy that I think would be really fun to explore and give readers just extra kernels of that world and how Astraea could be as well.

Charlie: I love that you’ve got it here as well, this is nice, so people can hear it here. And this actually goes into a question that I had noted. I was wondering – and I think you’ve kind of answered some of the question, but maybe there’s more to be said – why it was exactly that you chose this period, essentially, of Astraea’s life, as opposed to the first iteration of her and Nyte’s relationship to focus on?

Chloe: I really like the idea of doing this kind of past versus present race against time. Fate won last time; can we defeat fate again? And in the Greek myth of Astraea, it’s prophesied that she was to return to Earth and bring about the Golden Age again. So I wanted to start this story with her prophesied return. And I didn’t want it to be a return of instant action. She knows exactly who did what and just comes in and tries to make things right – I wanted to really build on her vulnerable side and make her learn who she is, learn about the world. It opens up a lot of growth. And then the next two books is Astraea and Nyte just fighting to keep their love, while also we want to save the world but they’re stubborn in love. So I think that’s why. Yeah, it was both a mix of wanting to have that development with Astraea as a character and the Greek myth of Astraea, just starting with her prophesied return and in book two we get glimpses of the past and we get to see how they met and how they discovered what was wrong with the world and while also reflecting on their current situation. So there really is this race against time, past versus present, which was really fun for me to explore.

Charlie: Really interesting to find out about all this and also the future and yeah, everything else. You say about not planning or whatever. Did you have any idea where you want the story to head, before you started – the general direction or more specifics, stuff like that?

Chloe: Pretty much. I think I always have core pieces, the beginning and ends of every book. And along the way things kind of change. Like in book three, things happened that I didn’t quite anticipate, which I think are quite cool. So things do transpire as I’m writing, but I know the beginning and end of each book at least, and probably about the midpoint, on what’s going to stir things up for them. And then the rest is just walking through the book with the characters and seeing what unfolds. I discover a lot more intriguing things, so it’s really fun.

Charlie: okay. All right, well, you better tell us, I think if we… yeah, we’ll stick to the two main characters at the moment, if you can tell us more about them themselves, I suppose, creating Astraea and Nyte.

Chloe: Yeah, I mean, Astraea and Nyte have one of my favourite dynamics that I think I’ve written. They are very much opposites attract while being very similar. I love the idea of having two people and two forces that are as necessary for each other as they are catastrophic for each other. They’re the night and the stars, they’re the dark and the light. And where Astraea, especially in her first life, and we get to touch upon more of this later, on how she was made out to be this perfect maiden – she had to wear white, she had to be this proper person – and Nyte is the first time where she gets to explore the dark part of her without it being a bad thing. She gets to be more of herself. And on the flip side, Nyte is this very sure of himself character who has been used as the villain his whole life, and that’s who he is. And with Astraea, it’s the first time that he gets to be vulnerable and starts to hear from somebody else’s perspective that what happened to him wasn’t okay. And he gets to have this real softer side, which he hasn’t with anyone else. So I love their dynamic where they balance each other and they’re willing to fight for it.

Charlie: Yes, you definitely got your yin and yang here. [Chloe: yeah.] And, yeah, it’s interesting how you balance Nyte being the hero, because I think he is very much a hero, but he is also an anti-hero [Chloe: yes] I think, definitely towards the end of the book, definitely. The romance is a very, very slow burn. I think you have noted the slow burn in your promotional images and stuff. Why did you choose this method of inclusion, the slow burn as opposed to something else?

Chloe: It’s always going to be slow burn with me. I love the progression, especially with Nyte knowing everything that Astraea doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to impose himself and he wants to give her a chance to really reject him, essentially, try not to repeat the past. It was bound to happen, but I always do a slow burn. I mean, my An Heir Comes To Rise series is a slow, slow burn [chuckles]. The main characters don’t even kiss until the second half of the third book. So this is not too slow for me. And that’s hence to where I’ve come from, a longer series. But definitely, I think it was just, especially with their circumstance, Nyte was never going to come full on to her, even though he knows how much he loves her and has been in love with her. He’s also very considerate of how vulnerable she is and open to manipulation that she has suffered and things like that. So I think they progressed quite well on Astraea’s terms in this book.

Charlie: So a fast burn in terms of Chloe’s work [Chloe laughs], and I will have links to the other books that Chloe is talking about, her back catalogue, in the episode show notes for you listeners. Ever worry that Nyte’s powers might make things too easy? How did you get around that?

Chloe: Yeah, it’s always difficult dealing with really powerful characters [chuckles] and there’s definitely things that you need to implement in the world that are going to nullify powers or restrict them or things like that. So Nyte is trapped the whole time and he can’t do anything really. So when he gets out and we discover the height of his powers, then, yeah, it can seem like there’s going to be a challenge to put him in a box and not make him be able to do everything! And I think it works out, fairly well. There are definitely just different weapons and things that… he’s not invincible and no character is ever invincible. And that is what I like to emphasise just through various different things. He is very powerful, but against an army he’s not going to be. Against certain weapons he’s not going to be. So it’s just getting those elements of the story and at the right time.

Charlie: Yeah, I mean you saying what you have he’s definitely physically limited, at least for most of the book. Yeah, okay.

Chloe: Yeah.

Charlie: So you have touched on it very briefly, but without the words so much. But I would like to get on to Astraea’s mental state. So I suppose I want to ask, to start with, how did you work with giving readers answers in regards to her mental state, when to give answers, when to hold back, how did you come to decisions on this?

Chloe: I think Astraea is just very much a character that you need to walk through the world with. She’s quite an unreliable narrator, she’s got very limited point of view of the world. So I think she’s a character that you’ve got to put yourself more in her shoes than quite a lot of other characters. And emotionally she just has these breaking points, with her best friend dying and Hektor before that, there’s various moments of vulnerability where she breaks a little bit; and I think Astraea was a character that was very cathartic for me to write. I think she came to me at a time that I really bonded with her more than quite a few characters. And she does have a lot of representation of different mental states. I think she does represent the self-doubt and depression at some times, and building through that is her own journey. And the people she meets along the way, I think really help her to see things about herself that she has not allowed herself to see and has also not been allowed to see coming from the situation with Hektor.

Charlie: Okay, thank you for your expansion. Talking of Astraea herself then, in terms of the amnesia and the abuse, are you able to tell us about this, about the importance of including them, I suppose?

Chloe: Yeah, I think Astraea’s beginning situation is tough and it is really important and I think that’s what makes it tough. And I’ve known people that have been through the same thing that Astraea has been through. And I know that she was coming back without her memories was part of the lore thing. And I think a lot of women can see themselves in the situation where Astraea thinks she loves Hektor and it’s all she knows. And Hektor’s very manipulative, he’s a narcissist, and she is just led to believe. And it’s like she can leave, she can, but she doesn’t believe in herself enough to leave. And going through that journey of Astraea, just finally breaking her own chains, essentially, when she gets the opportunity, I think a lot of people can relate to or understand with. Even if it’s not a direct relationship with her, I think the emotions she goes through can apply to a lot of different scenarios in our lives. So that was my reason for starting her where she was.

Charlie: This I suppose links back into what you said earlier about having found family in your books as well. This comes into it [Chloe: yes, yeah] Yeah.

Chloe: Yeah, I love that. I love the found family aspect of books. It’s my favourite.

Charlie: I like it as well. It is a very nice thing. The Libertatum. Am I pronouncing that right? Would you say [pronounces] Liber-tay-tum? Liber-tat-tum?

Chloe: Yeah, I’d say [pronounces] Liber-tay-tum.

Charlie: Okay, tell us about this, about creating it.

Chloe: I didn’t want to have these gladiator-style games. To Astraea’s character, she’s very much a puzzle-minded person. So as we get towards the spoiler part of the book we discover that she created the games long ago with her key. When she died she broke the key and the key became parts of this game and the king was the first one to play them and couldn’t find the actual key that he needed. Well, the weapon-type key and to get into the temples and things. And so I think Astraea going through them, they weren’t too challenging for her. They were more like these eye opening moments for her linking to the past. And I think once it comes out that we discover that they were because of Astraea I think it makes much more sense and how her mind works with the puzzles and we get the first glimpse when she’s in the end with Cassia and she’s really good at the matchstick puzzle and then so when she gets into the games she was worried this whole time that they were going to be these fighting style games. When she meets Lilith at the mansion and she’s okay with the bow and things like that but this is what really panics her about going in is she’s not at that current moment the fighter type person. But when she actually gets in there she gets to play with her mind and that is the best tool that she’s got. That was kind of it – I just really wanted to foreshadow that Astraea was always going to be good at them [laughs] and that when it comes out about the key and the part and that she made the games, I hope just fits that together.

Charlie: Something that I’m noticing that I want to ask you as you are talking and since we’ve been talking at the start, is you say about lore, and there is a lot of lore, and you’re bringing even more than I had thought of as you’re talking. How long did you spend thinking about the world – before planning as such – how long did this idea develop in your head as a book idea, as a possibility, before you put any pen to paper or anything?

Chloe: It was just something swirling in the back of my mind ever since I started or was in the middle of the fifth book of An Heir Comes To Rise. And it was for two reasons. On one hand, I just started feeling like it’s time to start working on something else and coming to the end of this long series, what’s going to be next? And I started being attracted to something about the night and the stars, and then that’s how it kind of went! So I don’t know, probably about the best part of a year that was just kind of to and fro and there’s videos on my TikTok and things of when I first was like, ‘oh, this is how I’m going to plan a new book’. And that was long before the book came out. And funnily enough, The Stars Are Dying was literally the first sentence that ever came to my mind. I wrote it down and my document, it was never supposed to be the title or anything like that. The book started with, ‘The stars are dying’. And it started in a completely different way where Astraea was looking up at the stars and that was the first thing she noted, was the stars are dying. And then I started talking with friends and I was like, ‘well, this is going to be project The Stars Are Dying’. And then it just stuck. So that’s how the title actually came about. And, yeah, there’s just a lot of thinking in the back burner. And then, I went full speed ahead.

Charlie: Yeah, all right. Wow. I mean, in the best of ways, yes I can see why it took you a year ahead. [Chloe chuckles.] All that percolating. That’s really interesting. And I’m going to move us on to a different topic now. But it was pretty obvious, and this is, I think, quite late in the book. It was pretty obvious that stabbing night, as I said, different topic, wasn’t going to be the end, but it was still shocking. I would just like to ask if you can tell us about your thoughts here in creating this aspect of the story?

Chloe: Just the part where she stabs him?

Charlie: Yeah!

Chloe: I think [chuckles] I think there’s one, a fun element to it. I think it really is a foreshadow for readers, but a glimpse of the past to them, of their enemies to lovers beginning. Very much in their past lives, I think it’s quite obvious at the end of the book, once you start hearing about who Nyte is and who Astraea really is, that they were always these opposing forces and opposing sides. Nyte’s known as the villain of the world, Astraea is known as the saviour of the world. And so I think that that moment was definitely a callback to their past, how they started. And I think it also was just a bit of information where we know of what’s harmful to Nyte and where to stab him [both chuckle] and just this playful side to them. So I just quite like that moment.

Charlie: I thought it was good and I thought, effectively, ‘is Chloe going to go there? Oh, okay. All right!’ [Chloe chuckles.] Quite a dark addition, but very good. Yeah, I liked it. So you have mentioned An Heir Comes To Rise and I believe this series is going to cross over somewhere with it? [Chloe: yes.] Is that okay to talk about now or is that too spoilery for the future?

Chloe: I won’t say exactly how [Charlie: okay], but it did change a lot. It changed a lot for a few reasons. One, it was the publication and the Nytefall trilogy getting picked up, versus An Heir Comes To Rise still being indie. And I wanted readers to be able to read one or the other, because not everybody likes both. And I think they do have very different… well, similar vibes where they’re fantasy, I mean An Heir Comes To Rise does have a lot of romantic subplots, so they do vibe with each other, but at the same time, one person will like one series, one person will like the other series. So I wanted them to be able to be read separately and so I had to do it in a way that would feed the people that are here for the whole series and be very satisfying, while also making it make sense to have this other character appear in An Heir Comes To Rise, and, if you haven’t read Nytefall, to not be confused on why they’re there! It still is a challenge because I’m still writing the sixth book of An Heir Comes To Rise, but it happens in that book and it’s still challenging.

Charlie: Oh, I don’t doubt it, yeah. Humour me on this one. Did Cassia have to die? Did you consider having her involved further in terms of her physical presence, et cetera?

Chloe: I think Cassia had to die. I think it was very pivotal, one, to protect Astraea, and two, I mean, we discovered that Cassia was always going to die and that she fell short of her dreams but it gave Astraea the opportunity to carry them on for her and go on to do this. And I think, we get Cassia’s voice in Astraea’s head because it comes out that she’s been harbouring her soul the whole time, ever since she died, so I think Cassia was almost like a sacrifice where, yeah, Astraea got to really propel herself and carry forth that dream while still having Cassia with her. And I think it was a really touching moment when Astraea got to realise that they went through the trials together and release Cassia’s soul back to the stars. And I think that if it happened another way where Cassia didn’t die, I just couldn’t see Astraea participating at all in the trials. I think she would have still being in that place of being sheltered if Cassia would have still been this shelter for her, and I think she had to break out of that. And Cassia as a spirit was happy with that outcome. Yeah, I think it happened in the best way.

Charlie: I agree with you. And that’s interesting to get your answer there. You have, at least in the ARC I read, but I think you’ve got it in certain editions of the published edition, you’ve got a couple of bonus chapters at the end and one of them is of Rosalind and [pronounces] Za-thri-an? I think you might say? [Pronounces] Za-thear-ri-an?

Chloe: I would say [pronounces] Za-thri-an.

Charlie: Zathrian. Okay. So Rosalind and Zathrian, they’re already important characters but are they going to become even more important later on?

Chloe: I think they’re just as important to Astraea’s journey. I mean – and I’m going to reference my other series again – but An Heir Comes To Rise just ends up multiple POVs. And I love that. I love getting so many points of views and different plot lines interweaving. I really had to limit myself with the Nytefall trilogy because at its core it is about Nyte and Astraea’s story and their star-crossed dilemma. So as much as I got into book three and I was like, ‘can I do multiple POVs?’ I didn’t. I kept it to Nyte and Astraea. But I do think that Zath, Rosalind, are just as pivotal to Astraea. And the found family grows – Lilith comes back, Davina’s still there, so it grows. Drystan, he’s one of my favourite characters and a very important character. So yeah, I like, like I said, the found family, so I like to make everybody quite important. It has been a different challenge with the Nytefall trilogy of only having two POVs – well, book one’s only Astraea, but book two and three are Nyte and Astraea’s point of views. Yes, the side characters are still important to the story.

Charlie: You’ve got those more spin-off potential there as well, anyway.

Chloe: Yeah.

Charlie: Tell us about Drystan, his importance to you.

Chloe: There’s a lot more to come out with him. So the ending is quite touch and go – we don’t know what’s going to unfold in the next book. So there’s a lot of more than meets the eye with Drystan and I think he’s just a really interesting character and I’m looking forward to seeing how readers respond to him and things. I can’t go too much about Drystan without spoiling things for the next book, I don’t think.

Charlie: Sure, that’s okay [both laugh]. So book two, The Night Is Defying. Tell us what you can at this point.

Chloe: What I can say is that, like I did touch upon earlier, we do get this past versus present. So we do get glimpses of Nyte and Astraea’s past through Nyte’s POV. We also get Nyte’s POV in the current time. What else can I say? There’s a bomb dropped at the end of book one about there being this other bonding, so we get to expand upon that and what that means for our star-crossed lovers, Nyte and Astraea, and what it meant back then, what it means now. We do get to see Althenia, which is where Astraea’s from, so we get to explore more places. And that’s all I can share at the moment.

Charlie: That’s absolutely fine. Yeah you did throw a spanner in the works at the end of that book, definitely.

Chloe: Yeah [Charlie laughs]. Yeah. I was in two minds on where to put that there [chuckles] and I think it gave a lot of people trust issues and panic about a love triangle type thing. But what I can say is I don’t think it’s a love triangle, I don’t. Yeah, there’s definitely complications… I mean some people don’t like to know this and some people do like to know this, so I don’t want to speak too much other than it’s not going to be an annoying love triangle where she’s, ‘Oh! My heart’s torn!’ and things like that.

Charlie: You said reader responses. I do want to ask how is the general reader response to your book… if we say, in comparison to An Heir Comes To Rise, how have people taken this new project?

Chloe: I think it’s definitely had high highs and low lows. And this is where reader feedback and things start coming in handy and just seeing how people are receiving a book. And Astraea’s story is very different to Faith’s story from An Heir Comes To Rise. I think the Nytefall trilogy is more like this puzzley type book where there is a lot of unanswered questions; the world is very large and coming from somebody that has very limited knowledge, I think The Stars Are Dying can seem very heavy and confusing at times. And I think books one and two marry in very well with each other, so I’m looking forward to seeing if readers feel that way where, especially with the end of book one, there was a lot of information thrown at you [chuckles] at the end of book one and I get that, and hopefully book two really balances the scale on realising where everything came from. And I think the Nytefall trilogy is one of those books where if you read book one and two and then read book one again or something, you would see everything that was there, but as a first read, it can be difficult to pick up those crumbs sometimes. It’s just what I’ve got from reader feedback. It’s been great as well. So great and interesting!

Charlie: Yeah, yeah. This brings us into asking about the publishing. This is your first time traditionally publishing. How does the experience so far compare to self-publishing? And are you going to continue in both camps?

Chloe: Yeah, I would love to continue in both. It’s really hard to compare to me, because I haven’t yet traditionally published straight out the gates. So The Stars Are Dying I got to do, once again, everything that I wanted to do with that book – the covers, the interior design, everything that I wanted to do with that book, I got to do. And, they pretty much published it the same as what I had, and added extra good stuff in it, with the sprayed edges and whatnot in the US. And so it would be interesting to me to sell a title straight to traditional and see the cover negotiations, the things like that. It’s really nice to have a team invested in the success of this book. Whereas in the independent publishing, you’re really your biggest cheerleader, you’re wearing a lot of hats, everything falls on you – the marketing, the everything. So it’s been really nice to know there’s a lot of people in my corner with this book. It’s definitely a perk of traditional publishing and the publishing houses Bramble and Wildfire have been absolutely amazing and really believe in this story and in me, so that’s been really lovely. But I love both because I love independent publishing and I love getting to do everything that I want to do. And there’s a certain extra special input from me in the independent publishing. So I would always like to maybe do both, but it really just depends on the story I think.

Charlie: How did the traditional publishing come about, if I can ask?

Chloe: Yeah, it’s a bit unconventional, I think. So I was gearing up to release The Stars Are Dying and I’d done a lot of promo for it. I was really putting myself out there on TikTok and my videos were getting seen and people were really excited for the story and my agent reached out to me not long before it was about to come out. And I signed with her, we got on right away, and funnily enough she reached out to me about An Heir Comes To Rise; she had read that book and loved it and wanted to sell that series, but publishers were more interested in The Stars Are Dying. Of course it was like about to be a brand new release, the first book in a series. And so there was just a lot more appeal with The Stars Are Dying. An Heir Comes To Rise, there’s five books out, they’re high fantasy and it’s a bigger risk for them. So I would never say never to traditional publishing. I think An Heir Comes To Rise could do well in traditional publishing, especially with the limitations in print that indie authors have. So having so many books, I think that would be a perk of traditional publishing with that series. But yeah, we sold The Stars Are Dying just before it came out. So they were fine for me to indie publish it. So I went ahead with my indie release and that was out for a couple of months before I took them all down and we put up the pre-order for the traditional and it’s been a long year. So for me, The Stars Are Dying has been out for over a year, and for the readers who are with me since the indie version, it’s been out for that long. So it’s been really strange but wonderful that we got to re-release it and it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s out again! Congratulations!’ And I’m just really excited for the second book to come out because I’ve been waiting for this for over a year now, it would have been out if it was indie published already. Patience has been a virtue in this transition! But it’s been, I think, worth it. I’m just really excited for what’s to come.

Charlie: Excited to see just what’s happening on your Instagram, and following that [Chloe: yeah]. It’s lovely. You say something in your acknowledgments, which I’m going to tentatively assume makes it into the final copy [Chloe: okay] about house and garden – you had promised your dogs, I believe, that you would get a house and garden [Chloe: yes, I did], and this publishing, this traditionally publishing has enabled you to do that. Tell us about it.

Chloe: Yeah, I mean, I wrote those acknowledgments before we sold the book. I mean, I thank my dogs in most of my books, in An Heir Comes To Rise books and it was just so… I don’t know… such a coincidence, a manifestation, whatever we want to call it, that I put in The Stars Are Dying – indie one, before we even sold the series – that one day I would get the house for the garden with the dogs because I’ve always been in apartment life with them. And then we sold that book, which enabled me to get the house! And so that was just a real life moment for me where, yeah, that was the book to do it. So, yeah, I still just feel really thankful for that and blessed, so, yeah.

Charlie: It was lovely seeing [Chloe: yeah!]. I think I read it and then I saw your TikTok. I was like, ‘Hey, she did it! Well done, it’s brilliant’.

Chloe: I know. Yeah, I read the acknowledgments again. I was like, ‘My goodness, that actually happened. Wow’. Yeah, I’m still in awe!

Charlie: What are you writing now? And I believe it might be… is it a love triangle book or have I got that wrong?

Chloe: No, it’s not a love triangle. I have two series which are vying for my attention here. One is more of a romantasy-forward at sea type book. Not quite pirates and sirens yet, but more like different water abilities and this idea of a world that’s being drowned by the gods and there’s only these islands left. And so most of the military and everything is through sea and the water abilities are the ones who are keeping them safe and things and secrets to that world. But then on the other hand, I’ve been thinking about this other idea for over a year now that’s been playing and I have a board that is full of things. And this one is more of like another epic-scale fantasy where there’s going to be a lot of layers, a lot of magic, a lot of twists and turns that will take a lot of prep from me but I think… I don’t know, I’m really excited about that one. So that one’s been something that’s been on my mind for a long time, whereas this romantasy at sea book was more sporadic and I think going to be more fun and things. But the epic-scale fantasy is like my bread and butter and that is what I love, is magic systems and found family and a lot of things. So one of those two I would like to get prepared soon, maybe pitch to traditional, see if they would be interested first.

Charlie: Okay, well, obviously this is the first time I’m meeting you, but I really like the second one particularly. It sounds like it will work for you, as such.

Chloe: Yeah, I think that will be a good one to work on and hopefully all the hard work pays off.

Charlie: Yes, very much so. Chloe, this has been fantastic having you. I have very much enjoyed your book and yeah, learning about the lore has been really nice because I did not realise just how much you’ve got in there. Thank you for being here today.

Chloe: Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. It was so lovely to get to chat about everything.

[Recorded later] Charlie: I do hope you enjoyed this episode. Do join me next time. And if you have a moment to spare, please do leave a rating and/or review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Podcast Addict. Thank you! Author’s Afterword episode 113 was recorded on 24th October 2024 and published on 13th January 2025. Music and production by Charlie Place.

Photo credit: Caroline Anne

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